Unforeseen Circumstances
by Foxytails
Summary: Foxtail did Nazi this one coming. Worm SI.
1. Chapter 1

I'm beginning to think my mother was right all along. Now isn't _that_ a scary thought?

But as I woke up in a scratchy, uncomfortable bed with a splitting headache and an equally sore body...yeah, my first thought was that I _should_ drink less. And party less. And generally spend less of my time leading a destructive lifestyle.

Maybe that was just the hangover talking.

My alarm clock was going off like a banshee which did nothing but exacerbate my headache. I slapped a hand over my eyes and groaned. I was too tired for shit like this, and I...I don't own an alarm clock. I haven't used one since high school.

 _So where am I?_

I lolled my head over listlessly to look at the bedside table. It was bare of any personal effects or clutter except for some sort of flashlight-esque device. There was not an alarm clock. So where the hell was that noise coming from. _When I find that thing, I swear to god…_

With way more stiffness than _any_ nineteen year-old has _any_ business suffering from, I swung my feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor. My sleep-needy mind definitely twigged onto something fishy there. Even in my own bed, my toes can barely touch the ground from atop the mattress. In a stranger's bed? Not freakin' likely.

The alarm clock on the far-away dresser went silent but now alarm bells were ringing in my _own_ head. I looked down at my legs but they weren't _my_ legs. The wiry limbs were corded with taut muscle, not to mention speckled with a dozen different scars each. I checked my hands and arms next – the same was true of them.

I'm not totally sedentary, but I wouldn't exactly call myself athletic either. That's been a pretty steady truth through my life; my family does sports, but I prefer finding less active ways to occupy my time. Stuff like knitting. But not actually knitting because that's lame. More like fucking around on the internet. And writing shitty fanfiction.

Point being: the scars and the muscles? Definitely not me. I gulped. _Fuck_.

I rubbed my throat. Was it just me, or did something feel wrong there too? I reached out and grabbed the little gizmo thingy from the nightstand. I was pretty sure that was an artificial larynx. I was led to that conclusion by the fact that it said "electrolarynx" on a sticker at the bottom.

So. Muscles, scars, an electrolarynx? Call me an obsessive fangirl, but all that together put me in mind of one fictional character. Cricket. From Worm.

Okay, it sounded ridiculous when I actually thought it. It would be a massive understatement to say that was "quite a stretch" to make. I mean, aside from the fucked up body and the stranger's bed, I had no proof that anything was out of the ordinary. Maybe I was just tripping really, really hard. You can trip on advil, right?

The radio alarm clock started blaring again, rattling with the tune of "Party Rock Anthem." _Okay_ , I conceded. _It's definitely 2011._

If that was true, though, I was really fucked. Off the top of my head, Cricket didn't come to mind as a major Worm character - she was more a name-drop than anything. I wracked my brain for any other factoid I could recall about her. She was fast and strong, she was violent by nature, and she was a member of...fuck.

The guys on the Cauldron discord were never going to let up with the Nazi jokes after this.

* * *

After the initial panic attack - _I'm in the Wormverse, I'm going to die by Leviathan/Skitter/Scion, I have a tongue piercing_ \- I managed to calm down and think about the more practical things. First of all, if I was in Cricket's body, I was probably in one of the Empire's bases. That meant I could be in danger at this very moment. Secondly, and arguably more importantly, Cricket sleeps in a binder of all things and what the fuck is wrong with her?

First order of business: find some more comfortable clothes. Second order of business: get the hell out of dodge. And not just get out of the Empire Eighty-Eight base; Brockton Bay was a shithole through and through. I had to leg it out of the goddamn city. I couldn't remember the name of that cute little town where Damsel of Distress lived, but maybe I could find out online. That seemed safer.

My stomach growled angrily. Shit. Of _course_ Cricket would be the type to be ravenous by breakfast time. _Ugh_. I cursed whatever deity or entity had decided to drop me into Miss Überfrau. She was enough of a freak already, wasn't she?

Revised timetable: Dress, Eat, GTFO.

With more motivation to hurry things up, I made my way over to Cricket's rickety-looking dresser. Again, nothing to decorate the damn thing; no lacy doily or vase of flowers or whatever. There _was_ a worn sticker on the side of the dresser, but I think that was from a previous owner. It had mostly been scraped away. With knives, by the looks of it. As if I needed a reminder that Cricket was a crazy, hardcore motherfucker.

I probably wouldn't have been able to tug open the top drawer, but Cricket's body was basically honed to be a weapon and she was _strong_. It took a single yank to unjam it and then I could survey my options. Which were...sparse.

From the very, very little of her that we saw in canon, I hadn't pegged Cricket as a "girly" girl. But looking at her wardrobe, holy shit. The vast majority of her tops were probably more revealing than anything I own back home. That's not to say they were _pretty_ or _cute_ by any means, but they were...eye-catching at least.

Things clicked into place a bit. Cricket was the type that liked to show herself off - not so people could ogle her body, but to prove her worth as a warrior. She was showing off her scars.

That was all well and good, but it just made the dressing process harder for me. After agonizing over my options for a while, I had to settle for one of those tanktops with the hugely sagging armholes because at least that didn't showcase my toned tummy and décolletage head-on. Well...Cricket's toned tummy and décolletage. Whatever. They were mine now. Mwahaha.

I wasn't happy with the clothes I had, but I probably wouldn't be happy with anything for a while. I added "clothes shopping" to my list of things to do ASAP. Was it possible for a scarred-up supervillain like Cricket to go to a Forever 21 or something? I hoped so. Anyway, I was gonna have to write my schedule down soon because my memory is horrible when it comes to lists.

Dressed in Cricket's raggedy tank top, a vastly more conservative pair of her hacked-up men's cargo pants (apparently men's pants are superior in Earth Bet too), and a leather jacket, I felt ready to face the world. Well, sort of. At the very least, I was ready to get out of Cricket's bedroom because it was boring as all hell.

I'll admit, I can be a bit of an idiot. As I strolled down the barren hallway of what seemed like a ratty apartment, I remembered a really obvious fact: Cricket was a cape. Capes have superpowers. _I'm Cricket. I have superpowers. That's fucking awesome!_

So, of course, I tried them out. Sue me. You would too, don't deny it. Sure, Cricket wasn't exactly Contessa or Legend or whichever canon characters people claim as their favorites, but powers are powers.

Maybe, for capes, superpowers come with a mental manual. A shard-induced guide on how the powers work, how to keep from killing yourself, etc. - the mental equivalent of a breaker state, right?

Well, whoever shunted me into Cricket didn't get that memo. One very brief but very intense bout of vertigo later found me kneeled over the sole toilet in the household, puking my - her - guts out. I locked my arms around my belly weakly and spat out a hunk of whatever was on last night's ubermenu.

When _that_ was over, I leaned back on my haunches and sighed. Goddammit. This day was not even close to going according to plan. My stomach gurgled in response. _Ugh_. I reached up to my shoulders to tie my hair back into a ponytail before the second wave hit me.

And...I…

I reached up to find _no hair._ My mind stuttered to a halt. _Wait, what the fuck?_ It was a long and confusing moment before my brain could reboot and start processing things again. I went over the facts of my immediate situation slowly:

1\. I used to have long, blonde hair that I literally slave over because I love it more than life itself.  
2\. Cricket fucking shaves her head.  
3\. My body looks like it's been thrown under a lawnmower  
4\. I have fucking superpowers!  
5. _Cricket fucking shaves her head!_

My brain crashed back into action, hitting me like a tidal wave. _What the actual fuck I am stuck in the body of literally the only female Nazi in canon who actually shaved her goddamn head what the fuuuuck._

Eventually, I calmed down a bit. I also ralphed again, but I was 90% sure that was because of the superpower-induced vertigo and not the fact that I was bald.

I just had to stay objective. Stick to the facts, to what I knew about canon, and I would get out of this whole ordeal in one piece. Maybe I'd even get my hair back, somehow. Or, well, Cricket's hair. I could call on Othala or maybe coerce Panacea into fixing me somehow. Point was, I had options. My breathing slowed to a healthier rate.

 _The essentials first, and then I work on my hair,_ I decided. With my plan laid out, the daunting task of survival felt a lot more manageable. _I'm okay. Everything is okay._

Footsteps that I hadn't noticed (damn these selective sensory powers!) thudded to a halt in the doorway to the bathroom. It was someone big. I sniffed a little and wiped my eyes to hide the evidence of my panic attack. Okay, despite the fact that I was keeled over a toilet, the big someone was distinctly _smelly_ too.

I turned to glare at the intruder out of the corner of my eye. The man leaned into the doorframe, resting his bulk on a forearm that looked as thick around as one of my - Cricket's - thighs. His hair and clothes were in a similar state to my own: shorn and tattered.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Stormtiger growled. I answered by hawking up another gob of last night's bratwurst and depositing it in the toilet bowl.

Fuck the Wormverse.


	2. Chapter 2

I almost forgot about the electrolarynx. Fortunately, my fucked up throat gave me a helpful reminder when I choked on the train of cusses directed at Stormtiger. He grunted, maybe in amusement at my sorry state.

"Did you forget about the training sesh this morning?" he asked me. His tone was one of vindictive humor. "What'll Victor say when he sees you like this? Haha!"

The Nazi bastard actually enunciated the"ha-ha." I was disgusted. I was also terrified. My mind was scrambling for what I remembered of Stormtiger in canon, and what I got was not comforting in the slightest. Not only was he sadistic and ruthless with his stupidly overpowered aerokinesis, he was also pretty perceptive. And an old comrade of Cricket's. He would _definitely_ notice anything wrong with my behavior.

 _Fuck_. What would Cricket do in this situation? Well, she probably wouldn't have tossed her _kekse_ in the first place. But if she did, _and_ she got caught, then she would be furious.

But then how would she react? I didn't know much of her. She had sonic powers that obviously could make people sick. They had also been used to cancel out other signals - I vaguely recalled her shutting down Shatterbird and screwing with Skitter - and as echolocation. Right.

In Worm, powers _are_ personality: a sum total of that cape's background, their response to trauma, and the development of their character after the fact. If you figure out a cape's powers, you can deduce a lot about who they are as a person, too. Well, that's assuming you understand the connection between powers and trigger events.

To put it simply, I _do_.

I'd put thought into the nuances of Cricket's powers before, but I'd never had to do it so _quickly_. She was a Thinker built for rough-and-tumble _combat_ , considering her enhanced reflexes and her echolocation. My brain snapped the pieces together. Considering what I knew about Thinker trigger events...a frustration at a system, a realization? That made sense.

And then there was the sonic - well, subsonic - aspect of her powers. I had to take a wild guess there. She probably wanted attention in some way, got it, but it turned out badly for her. That might explain why she had fucked up ideas of what to do for attention. Her wardrobe came to mind.

But that didn't _help_ me. I needed to know how she would respond to confrontation. The answer was a bit obvious when it hit me: she'd take the oblique angle. She might be a front lines fighter, but she wasn't a direct attacker. She also wasn't the type to bandy words.

I cut off that train of thought, satisfied with my conclusion. Then I cursed myself for the tangent I'd gone off on. I'd left Stormtiger waiting for a response…

Only that wasn't true. My eyes refocused on the buff Nazi. He still looked as smug as he had when he'd first reminded me of our training session. Of his and Cricket's training session, I mean. Whatever.

Right. I was so stupid. Cricket didn't just have superhuman reflexes; her whole perception of time could cranked up into overdrive. Maybe I could just _think_ faster. If that was true...well, first of all, holy crap was Cricket's power set broken. And also, holy crap was that _useful_.

With my insight into characters, both remembered from canon and extrapolated from wildbow's little knowledge bombs, alongside Cricket's ability to think way, way faster than anyone else...the options weren't limitless, but they were pretty broad.

But my enhanced processing time couldn't delay the interaction forever. I pressed the electrolarynx to my throat. My voice came out, garbled and electronic, but understandable. "Fuck off."

Stormtiger just roared with laughter at the invective. He jammed his big, meaty hands into the pockets of his stupid Hugo Boss cargo pants and walked away.

I pondered his power. Wildbow had once said that powers fit themes, aspects of someone's background. He'd specifically mentioned air as an indication of aimlessness, detachment. What did that mean for Stormtiger? He must have spent years without a home, without a place in the world, with nothing to push him on to the next fight. That could really mess a person up.

But for this racist fuck, it just made me despise him _more_. He had no obligation to the Empire, and I was pretty sure he didn't even buy into the anti-minority rhetoric. So what the hell was an aimless maverick like him doing with Empire 88?

I glared at Stormtiger's back as he walked away. I hated everything about him. Except maybe his sense of style. I had to admit, the bastard could pull off the jackbooted Nazi-zilla chic way better than Cricket.

* * *

Empire 88's training facility was located in a sprawling apartment above a quaint Starbucks cafe. I knew that the Empire was all about "white power", but, like, seriously?

I entered the repurposed dance studio at Stormtiger's side, already feeling a deep soreness in all of my joints.

When I was in tenth grade, my dad had tried to get me to compete in sports. I hadn't taken to it well. What I had hated the most, though, were the full-body aches that I'd wake up with every morning. My dad had told me the pain would stop in a couple weeks. I never kept it up long enough to find out.

Occupying Cricket's body, it felt like her workout included getting run over by trucks on the highway. What's more, I _knew_ that her body was accustomed to a lot of intense exertion. Was this just her default state of physical comfort? And if so, how the hell did she fight like this?

A man who I took to be Victor was already standing on a mat, barefoot, dressed in loose Adidas sweatpants and a tank top. I had sort of expected everyone to be wearing a karate uniform, although in retrospect that seemed stupid.

Victor's face split into a pearly white grin when he saw the two of us enter. He crooked a finger in our direction. "You're right on time. Step on up so we can get started; Othala and I have to leave early today."

Stormtiger lumbered over to a far corner where the weights were stacked; I guessed that meant Victor was talking to me. It made sense. Cricket was some sort of ninja fighter, Victor was a martial artist too. Maybe calling him an artist was misleading. Victor's particular style of fighting, if I recalled correctly, made him more of a martial _plagiarizer_.

I toed off Cricket's beat-up old combat boots and kicked them to the side. I wasn't wearing socks beneath them. Unless it was just my imagination, Victor made a face at that, so I sneered back at him. Not like anyone was going to care if a Nazi supervillainess had stinky feet.

I stepped onto the mat and beckoned at him. The artificial larynx went up to my throat. "Okay. Let's go."

"Aren't you going to stretch first?" Victor asked. I couldn't quite place his tone. Suspicion, disbelief, confusion? I looked over at Stormtiger for an indicator. He was doing yoga or some shit in the corner, straining his arms above his head. Oh. Yeah, I'd fucked up already.

 _Um. Right._ I bent over awkwardly and touched my toes. My top billowed out around me, showing off Cricket's torso and cleavage to everyone in the room. Wait. They were my torso and cleavage now; I had claimed them. I'd forgotten about that.

I sighed and drew myself back up to my full height. Cricket wasn't actually much taller than I am normally - than I _was_ , I corrected myself - so that isn't saying much. I tucked the hem of the errant top into the tight waist of my pants, maybe a bit more forcefully than necessary.

I had to keep my cover airtight. I wanted to be taken seriously, dammit!

I raised my fists, emulating the stance I'd seen in a movie. Or a game or something. Maybe it was Street Fighter. Victor didn't budge, just gazed at me with an increasingly critical eye. Oh, I was _so_ fucked.

It was Cricket's hardwired training that saved me. I could tell that my position was wrong, so I shifted until it felt more natural, limbs loose but at the ready. I stared back levelly at Victor.

He made the first move, charging at me across the mats. I thought it was a joke at first. There was no way he could be taking me seriously, moving towards me as slow as he was. Then the realization struck me - of _course_ Cricket's perceptions were amped up in combat too! Then his fist struck me. Apparently they weren't amped up enough.

I ducked under his next haymaker and took a gentle knee to the face for my trouble. He was taking it easy on me. It wasn't just for safety reasons, either - I knew Othala was hanging around somewhere to heal us up if we got hurt. That pissed me off.

I had no background or experience in fighting, but I was faster than Victor by a lot and had Cricket's muscle memory to guide me. I blocked Victor's next incoming punch - not very cleanly, it still hurt my arm - and exploded up at him. A shoulder to the gut, a sweep of my foot to catch him off balance, followed by a solid punch to the chest to knock a bit of the _blutbewußtsein_ out of him.

To his credit, he was sturdy, skilled, and recovered quickly. He recovered fast enough to kick out at me, which I also dodged. I wanted to laugh. This was fucking awesome!

Considering how fast my processing was, I should have known not to make eye contact with him in the middle of the fight. Considering how much time I've spent reading and writing for Worm, I _definitely_ shouldn't have made such a dumb mistake.

 _"I'd step back, Skitter," Tattletale said. "His power works by proximity, among other things. Physical contact, eye contact and active use of a skill lets him leech them off you…"_

I staggered back, reeling from the sudden dip in motor skills as Victor's power took effect. What was unexpected was that Victor had a similar reaction. He hissed and rubbed his head as though nursing a hangover. He looked confused.

Goddammit. His skill draining was as bad as mind reading when it came to differentiating between me and Cricket. I doubted that he was stealing away Cricket's latent muscle memory. What had he taken? My ability to write fanfiction? My knowledge of Worm?

Wow. The fact that those two were the first valued skills that came to mind was kind of sad.

Victor seemed to be more off-kilter from the use of his power than I was. _I have to act quickly._ What if he realized I wasn't Cricket? Even if he didn't know I was a fanfiction author inserted into his comrade-at-arms, he still might suspect that I was a Master or Changer.

All the time in the world wasn't going to give me a clue on how to get out of this mess, so I did the first thing that came to my mind. As Victor recovered from the shock of stealing my meager mid-combat bantering skills, I kicked him in the head. He dropped to the mat like a sack of Nazi bricks.

"Sorry!" I said dryly, voice buzzing through my artificial larynx. Stormtiger looked up from his weightlifting to see what was wrong. "Guess he did Nazi that one coming."

Damn. I sure hoped that the skills he stole came back over time.


End file.
